Recent blog entries by aplumb

I dropped by Best Buy yesterday and picked up one of their
cheapest Logitech optical mice (CDN$14.99+tax).

I opened it up today and sure enough, it's using an Agilent
ADNS-2501 sensor. It's in a DIP package (yes, the pins
along each side are offset by 0.05" as shown in the
datasheet), has quadrature outputs, an SPI, and if you look
on page 33-34 of the datasheet it can dump out the 16x16
pixel image it's "seeing".

In short, with the right optics you have a single, low-power
chip that can see 2D motion and capture images to pass up
the processing chain. Get two and you could have some very
interesting stereoscopic motion control potential.

My pack of ultracapacitors
arrived yesterday. Now all I have to do is make time in
between work and caring for a newborn to start work on my Sapien
Autopsy to graft them in as a battery replacement power
system...

Jin, brilliant as always. I like how you wired the ADXL202E
on DIP8 socket for test; I'm going to have to borrow that idea.

In other news, my two Robosapiens arrived, but not before
the baby arrived, so deconstructing them will have to wait.
I have a few ultracaps on order (thanks Steve), my goal
being to replace the battery-based power system with caps in
one of the Robosapiens and rigging up some solar
trickle-charging to keep them topped up.

Ah yes, if you buy more than 100 ultracaps they only cost
$22 each. No I didn't buy that many; I asked when quantity
price-breaks kick in.